Explore contemporary art, urban design, heritage and its social context.

Here are three innovative ARTWALKs to explore Sydney's historic inner-city precincts of Kings Cross, Darlinghurst and Woolloomooloo as well as Millers Point and the Rocks: Green Bans Art Walk, Sydney East Precinct Art Walk and Kings Cross Art Walk.

Art Walk is an initiative of twenty prominent contemporary art galleries and art project spaces in the neighbourhoods of East Sydney, Darlinghurst and The Cross.

Art Walk is simple. Several times a year (spring, summer, autumn and winter) precinct galleries coordinate an afternoon of art, drinks and food, talks and conviviality. A program of talks links the galleries.

This art walk and the Green Bans website were developed for the Green Bans Art Walk Exhibition in 2011. Presented by The Cross Art Projects, Performance Space, Big Fag Press and The Firstdraft Depot Project Space. The project was opened with talks by Jack Mundey with response by Peter McClelland, president CFMEU and Father Edmund Campion with response by Joe Owens, former BLF secretary. Other talks were by Meredith Burgmann, co-author of Green Bans, Red Union, Catriona Moore and Pam Johnson on 'Art and the Expanded Social Field' and Pat Fiske, director of 'Rocking the Foundations: A history of the Builders' Labourers' Federation' at the Green Bans Film Night Finale, at the Police Citizens Boys Club in Woolloomooloo.

'RIOT’: In June 1978 the inaugural Mardi Gras March was a walk up Darlinghurst Road to El Alamein Fountain by those who were unwavering in their fight for decriminalisation, recognition and equality. It turned into a riot when police arrested over 50 people.

The Minerva Theatre and Metro Kings Cross

The Minerva Theatre, opened in 1939 and renamed the Metro Kings Cross in 1952, has a long association with the nightlife of Kings Cross and Sydney's stage and screen, as a venue for major theatrical productions and films, musicals such as Hair and, more recently, a production house (Kennedy Miller). The Minerva Theatre opened on 18 May 1939 on Orwell Street in Kings Cross. The Minerva Theatre was built in the inter-war functionalist style, which emerged in Australia in the 1930s. It was an evolution of art deco and art moderne styles and greatly influenced by American and European architecture of the 1920s and 1930s. The theatre's vertical massing, sweeping curves, stepped forms and horizontal lines symbolised progress and modernity and were considered appropriate for a venue of popular culture. Architects Guy Crick and Bruce Furse supervised the design and construction of the Minerva Theatre with Dudley Ward designing and supervising the interior decoration, fibrous plaster details and decorative features, and external ornamental features and painting.

Minerva Theatre (1939-1945). Photo: Arthur Ernest Foster. From the collection of the State Library of New South Wales [a6942001 / ON 30/Box 69, ON 30/Box 70] (Mitchell Library)/

Minerva Theatre opening night, Potts Point 18 May 1939. Photo: By Sam Hood. From the collection of the State Library of New South Wales [a301103 / PXE 789 (v.56), 131] (Mitchell Library)